1.4 Digital Footprint Concepts

Digital Identity, Footprint, and Professional Contexts

As digital technology has become more common, affordable, and portable, more and more people from all parts of society are starting to increase their online and digital participation. Understanding the new opportunities, rules, and potential pitfalls of the digital world doesn’t necessarily come automatically with long-term use. Not everyone using digital technology knows how to handle the range of available tools to their best extent, and even experienced digital technology users can fall prey to hackers, lose control of how they are represented online, or otherwise fail to maintain their digital identity in an optimal manner.

It used to be that applying for a job was fairly simple: send in a résumé, write a cover letter, and call a few references to make sure they will say positive things. However, there is a new step that is now a common part of this application process—hiding (or at least cleaning up) your virtual self, or your ‘digital footprint’.

The ubiquity of digital media allows anyone to easily start developing an online persona from as early as birth. Although this footprint may not accurately reflect the individual, it may be one of the first things a stranger sees. Those online photos may not look bad to friends and family, but your online digital footprint may be a hiring manager’s first impression of you as a prospective employee. Someone in charge of hiring could search the internet for information on you even before calling references.

Consider: Your Digital Footprint

As noted in the image above, A Research Now survey of 2200 mothers in selected countries across the world with young (under two years) during the week of 27 Sept 2010 (Smith, 2010) noted that:

• 23% of chidren have pre-birth scans uploaded to the internet by their parents
• more than 70% of mothers said they posted baby and toddler images online to share them with friends and family
• the average age a child acquires an online presence courtesy of their parents is 6 months
• 81% of two year olds have a digital footprint
• 33% of children have images posted online from birth
• 7% of babies have an email address created for them by their parents

Reflect

• Do you think that children’s digital footprints have increased or decreased since this study was published?
• What sort of digital footprint do you have?

First impressions are an important thing to keep in mind when making an online persona professionally acceptable. Your presence online can be the equivalent of your first words to a brand-new acquaintance.

While it’s possible to deactivate your social media accounts, once something is online, it’s impossible to delete it completely. Photos, videos and posts will likely outlive you. As a business professional, you’ll need to begin to carefully curate what you post online, and what has already been posted.

This doesn’t mean you should delete everything: in fact, employers and clients want to see that you have interests and connections outside of work. However, be aware that their first impression of you may be digital – you’ll want to put your best ‘foot’ forward!

5 Ways to Improve your Digital Footprint

1. Google yourself. This is the best way to see what a potential employer or contact will see first, if they decide to do a search on you.
2. Edit you own posts, including photos, video and multimedia. Content that involves drugs, alcohol, illegal activities, strong political views, or any other controversial activity should be removed.
3. Ask friends and family who have posted controversial content to take it down.
4. Set up professional accounts on one or more platforms, such as LinkedIn. This will increase the chances of employers/clients seeing your professional side first, and is an inexpensive way to build your professional network.
5. Keep it positive with future posts and contributions. That will greatly reduce the chances that you will post something that could get you into trouble down the road.

Attribution & References

Except where otherwise noted, “Your Digital Footprint” is adapted from Your Digital Footprint In Communication for Business Professionals by eCampusOntario, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. / Added headings, some additional content mixed in.

• Thinking About Your Digital Identity is reused from Introduction to Digital Literacy by Cheryl Brown In Digital Citizenship Toolkit, CC BY 4.0
• Consider your Digital Footprint is adapted from AVG Digital Footprint by Official AVG, CC BY-NC-ND

References

Smith, J.R. (2010, October 6). Would you want a digital footprint from birth? AVG Blogs. https://jrsmith.blog.avg.com/2010/10/would-you-want-a-digital-footprint-from-birth.html Accessed via Wayback Internet Archive